Category Archives: Uncategorized

My sister is being a bum about replacing her car battery. It’s in our blood. Our family avoids mechanics like they’re doctors. She lives in a different state so there’s not much I can help with when she calls me from a gas station or empty parking lot at night while waiting for AAA. I do the sisterly thing and walk her through the situation’s high potential for inciting horror. Inspired by real life events, of course.

Final girls get the glory, but the first victim goes out in spectacular fashion. We may not learn her hopes and dreams. We may never know her name, but we will remember her screams always. Her end is our beginning. How she goes sets the tone for the whole movie, maybe even a franchise.

I tell her this knowing she lives in fear of zombies, vengeful spirits, masked strangers wielding chainsaws – the stuff dreams are made of. What do victims in horror movies lack? Reliable cars.

This is fixable. My other sisters and I got her a new car battery for Christmas. All she has to do is put it in or get someone to do it, but the mental block is mighty. I sent her links to tutorials so she could try to do it herself. It looks doable but so does self surgery when reduced down to a few images with colorful arrows.

Other people’s problems are so easy to fix. I should just drive there and help or go with to a mechanic. But well you see um actually my back tires need replacing. Every time I try to muster the will to take care of it something more urgent comes up, like a nap or taxes. I’d rather do my taxes than deal with my own car problem. Last summer, a deep dip in the lot at a trailhead knocked our wheel well liner loose. Okay, driving into the deep dip is probably what knocked it loose. We didn’t notice until this massive piece of rubber started dragging under the car on the drive home. The sound, feel and smell of rubber suddenly dragging on the road at 60+ mph is not pleasant. Fortunately I never leave home without duct tape. I proceeded to tape and re-tape for weeks. The mechanic said we spent more time taping than he did fixing.

So I understand the aversion but understanding isn’t going to break the cycle. Several times a week her car battery dies then my phone rings then a slasher road movie unfolds until headlights pull up presumably to lend a jump. Once the car is running again, her promise to take care of the battery is no match for the mental block.

Mental blocks are monsters. Mine are best defeated by bigger monsters. The consequences of not doing something that needs doing are always worse than the act of doing it. Procrastinators know this, but sometimes a push is needed. Enter my latest edition of I Wish This Existed.

I wish there was a business, sort of a singing telegram meets haunted attraction to-go. I could call and place a standard order for a haunter to lurk in the lot where she often calls me from. Then snap a twig. Maybe growl. Step out from the shadows a moment before AAA headlights roll up.

This business idea has some flaws. We can iron those out. Learn on our feet. Thinking it through, my sister would maybe never forgive me, but I’m pretty sure she’d get that battery put in. Maybe she’d thank me. Rather than wonder and never know, I ran this idea by her. A zombie steps out from behind a dumpster, slowly advances. You look into its eyes of endless hunger and wish you got that battery put in!

She said No thanks.

Later that night she called me not from a gas station and not for one of my usual don’t go down without a fight pep talks. I made her so paranoid she went to Pep Boys. She called me from home to not say thanks.

Dan Simmons is one of my go-to authors when I want meaty horror. The subject doesn’t matter. Reading him is like getting in a car with a friend and knowing you’re going to have a good time no matter where you go. It’s watching a Hitchcock film or putting on the Misfits. He’s one of my favorite authors. That said, the substantial heft of his books calls for some commitment.

Song of Kali, published in 1985, was his first published novel. It’s delightfully short, but in no way is this an easy read. If you’re in the mood for something dark and bone-chillingly nasty, here you go.

The story is set in Kolkata, Calcutta at the time it was written. Aside from Rabindranath Tagore’s stories, I’ve never read anything set in this city but my boyfriend’s family is from there so I’m basically an expert. He actually grabbed the book from my pile when I told him where it was set, but I got it back the next day as he took quick offense to the way Kolkata’s depicted. I don’t blame him. This is a fascinating book, though were it written by any other author I probably would’ve put it down, too.

Poet and publisher Robert Luczak is sent to Calcutta on a magazine assignment to retrieve a supposedly new manuscript from a supposedly dead poet. He brings along his Indian-American wife and their baby girl. It all seems very simple and they expect to fly back in a few short days, manuscript in hand.

Luczak’s efforts to gain possession of the manuscript and gather fodder for his article lead him on a convoluted trail from the company of an uppity writing society to members of the secret cult of Kali, goddess of death and destruction. Soon we find ourselves trapped in a story within a story. If you put yourself in Luczak’s shoes, listening to a stranger’s horrifying, seemingly irrelevant account of a secret barbaric cult in a sweltering city flanked by extreme poverty in the midst of monsoon season, you understand why he retreats to a presumably safe place of utter disbelief and thanks but this has nothing to do with me reaction.

This story just keeps getting darker and never went where I expected it to. The source of the horror lingers. Ghosts and monsters are fun and slashers are good times because they’re all absurd. The good ones come from a real place, but on the surface they roll around in bloody absurdity. You know it and the author knows it and so the ride can go anywhere. In Song of Kali, the true horror isn’t what moves in the shadows or a city’s continuous assault on the senses. It’s what people do to people, our capacity for violence.

Simmons wrote a novel in which a sprawling city and a fearful deity are characters, but the monsters are human. Where I anticipated a more heightened reality, the story remains grounded in every dirty minute. The actions Luczak takes to achieve his purpose dig him deeper and deeper. Normally, I want more awareness from a smart protagonist, but Simmons cleverly immerses him in the haze of being in a foreign land. There’s not a full moment of lucid orientation until suddenly there is and then you don’t want it but it hammers you anyway.

I’m glad I didn’t put this book down, but it is not a good time. It’s nothing like Stephen King or even the other Dan Simmons books I’ve read. One of the reasons I love horror is for it the breadth of its scope. This one goes to the dark corners and pulls out the things that scare us so much we don’t want to think about them let alone spend hours holding them close to our faces, reading every detail in teeny tiny text – my copy is old.

Unfortunately, Simmons disregards the nuances of Kali’s dual nature – death and rebirth, fierceness and compassion. Things we naturally think about this time of year as the trees fade so beautifully around us and lifelong traditions feed the urge to do something new.

I meant to write about this book sooner, but we were busy last week making food and having people over to celebrate Kali Puja and Diwali along with millions or others around the world. Pray, eat, party.

I started reading The Handmaid’s Tale the other night. Finished the introduction and reached page 8 when the headline of Montana’s special election, a House candidate body-slamming and punching a Guardian reporter, uh, distracted me. Then he got elected and raised over $100,000 post assault. So much for all those anti-bullying campaigns. America! It’s survival of the most bloated out here. The Bloatest. Th well-bloated class. That’s a fun word. Bloated. It reminds me of jelly donuts.

We know. We’re all reading the same headlines. We’re rooting for the same sinkhole. Maybe we all have the same growing urge, but we’re patient. We’re not alone.

I’m reading Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot very very slowly. Take comfort in knowing we’re all no-see-ums on a beautiful blue speck. Early in the book Sagan writes:

On the scale of the worlds – to say nothing of stars or galaxies – humans are inconsequential, a thin film of life on an obscure and solitary lump of rock and metal.

Back on Earth, it’s super author Margaret Atwood to the rescue. For years, since reading and loving The MaddAddam Trilogy, I checked out The Handmaid’s Tale from the library only to return it unopened. –

-The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel and in my view those are no-funs. As Atwood says in her new introduction, written in February 2017, most are implausible. But now it’s been adapted into a show I’d like to see. Considering the headlines and bloateds, The Handmaid’s Tale seems like a sweet vacation. It’s fiction, right? Couldn’t happen for real.

In the intro, Atwood tells of writing the first draft while living in West Germany in 1984. The fear, paranoia and oppression of the time inevitably influenced her writing. When she realized she was writing speculative fiction she set some interesting rules for herself. Every element is taken from history. She invented no technology or laws or practices.

We readers have no buffer. We cannot assure or comfort ourselves with Oh this would never happen in real life. It can. It has. At some point in history everything in this book has happened. The approach is brilliant. Dark and sobering, but brilliant. When it gets too dark, I’ll read more Sagan. That’s my plan.

Again, I’m only on page 8. My boyfriend commandeered my copy for his commute. On his way home he was so engrossed he hurried to the wrong train and wound up in Williamsburg. This morning he was late to work because he missed his stop reading. The book is really good, I hear.

Have you read it? Am I the last one to the party?

Normally I let Raj steal a book if he wants because I have a stack of others, but I’m in the mood for this one. Our compromise is to share. He gets it for his commute and every other night. We haven’t switched off this way since reading the Harry Potter series.

I know The Handmaid’s Tale is going to be great. I don’t expect it to ease any anxieties and anger, but the appeal is similar to that of historical fiction focused on resistance. Perspective. We’re inside it and sometimes when you’re too close you lose perspective on the good things individuals are capable of. We stand in their way with actions of hope.

Bozo is in town. Streets around the Hellmouth are fittingly lined with sanitation trucks. Knowing blondie is surrounded by garbage trucks makes me almost as joyous …

as all the lovely comic books hot off the press and ready for our eyeballs.

This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, the happiest day. Repeat: If it’s for free, it’s for me. Every year I find a few gems for my nieces. Last year, Science Comics! were a hit. This year they’ve requested stories with … capes. I tried so hard to steer them from superheroes and I failed big time. So instead of fighting it we’re making them capes to go with the reading.

This is my second round of cape-making for them. The first round didn’t turn out as I pictured them in my head. Still don’t know what I did wrong, possibly sewing them by hand in poor lighting. This time will be different because I begged my sister to sew them with her machine. She asked for the pattern like an amateur.

The pattern is just sew two capes with snaps at the collar and maybe a hood. I sew the way I bake, which is not always the best approach as it produces not always the best results, but when something does turn out it’s magical because it’s certainly not due to hard work and know-how.

In lieu of a sewing pattern, I’m busy barring the door from villains like, oh, slimy bigots in suits wielding executive orders and golf clubs. My buddies must harness their own powers, along with all the rest of us.

We took the subway to 14th street. The train smelled like stale beer and Friday’s pepperoni pizza re-discovered on the fire escape Sunday morning. I checked my bag and was relieved to discover antibacterial stuff my nieces gave me for Christmas. I put some on my hands and wiped the excess on Raj. Seconds later I realized what I’d done. We were on our way to a Life Of Agony show covered in sparkles and smelling like candy.

Many years ago we saw Mina Caputo on the street somewhere in the Lower East Side. This was before or maybe during her transition. LOA wasn’t on my radar for a long time. Anyway my boyfriend melted into a giddy 14-year-old and just opened his arms (which Mina graciously dodged), expressing his love in happy expletives. It happened again last night only this time Mina was on stage and larger than life, holding an entire ballroom of lifelong fans.

We were in the presence of greatness. All at once the crowd surged forward and around and some very enthusiastic fisty dancers broke through into their happy place. This incredible band thrilled a lot of people yesterday as they finally gave the world new album. A Place Where There’s No More Pain iseverything I didn’t know I needed.

Mina Caputo performed with such confidence and swagger. Her voice is as powerful and gripping as ever. You can argue it’s even better but why bother comparing when all that matters is that they’re making great music again and now it’s coming from a good place. After months of empty horribleness, seeing them live filled me. I felt so lucky to be there. I never thought I’d get to see them perform. Now here they are right when we need them with a brand new album.

My sisters call me The Pusher. When something is good I just want everyone in the world to read it, hear it, taste it, do it, go experience it. I’m not allowed to push things on them anymore, they say. We have different tastes, they say. Fine, I say.

Their loss. But the show’s magic bubble hasn’t popped yet and I’m feeling the urge to … push. Listen to Life Of Agony. Check out their new album over and over. Go see them and have a good time. You don’t need to be a lifelong fan to appreciate the new album. This isn’t a nostalgia trip. They still have so much to say. And if you’re ever lucky enough to see any of them on the street, please give them our thanks and love but maybe don’t try to hug them.

Like this:

I thought I saw the best license plate this morning. I was alone and doing something I haven’t done in so long on a neighborhood run – listening to music. Volbeat. We’ve traveled hundreds of miles together, me on foot and them in my ears driving me on with big theatrical sound and lyrics full of drama. I used to worship the bands I loved. Now they feel like friends. They’ve been there through every incarnation. When we’re together I’m more myself.

So basically I was running with some of my friends, my singing playing friends, when we passed this truck and had to stop for a laugh. Clear as my eyes could see the license plate said: I DEMON NYC. Only all squished together.

For a moment this made me very very happy. Some special soul used “demon” as a verb on a license plate. For a moment I lived in a city where people declare they demon. I want to demon, too, if it involves anything more than tearing up the streets and filling my lungs with the yummy taste of hot tar. Okay. I read it wrong. The plate actually said something about Demo.

The blurred world is magical. This is why I don’t ever wear my glasses. They’ve never been the same since I sat on them anyway.

Newbery Medal winners and honorees are always so good. We seek them out often enough to abbreviate them as Newbs. When I checked Clare Vanderpool’s Moon Over Manifest out, the librarian talked about her kids’ favorite books. I thought we were talking books, but we weren’t. She was struck with a bad case of presuming-I’m-a-parent-itus. Nope. For a second I felt like a weirdo fraud for being in the kids’ section without a kid. I read kids’ books for pleasure. Take that, friendly librarian.

Moon Over Manifest, 2011 Newb winner, was worth the moment of mild awkwardness at the library. This is the kind of book that pokes your heart. The story is about 12-year-old Abilene Tucker and the summer she spends in her dad’s hometown of Manifest, Kansas, a town of many Eastern and Western European immigrants. Set in 1936 and 1918, in that order, the story follows lonely Abilene as she tries to reconnect with her dad by learning about Manifest as it was in 1918, when he lived there.

Abilene enjoyed nomadic life with her dad, Gideon. She’s still not sure why she couldn’t accompany him to his railroad job like usual. He wanted her to go to Manifest and live with Pastor Shady for the summer so she did. The town’s not what she expected based on her daddy’s stories, but he’ll be back for her at the end of summer, sure thing.

Memories were like sunshine. They warmed you up and left a pleasant glow, but you couldn’t hold them.

In Shady’s former Baptist church-turned-speakeasy/home, she finds a cigar box of trinkets, letters from 1918, and a hand-drawn map of the town.The letters are between Ned, a soldier fighting in France, and Jinx, the friend he left behind. In addition to reading the letters, Abilene learns about the town’s rich history through local newspaper columns published during 1918 and by listening to the stories of a Hungarian “diviner” named Miss Sadie.

From losing young men to the war and growing tensions between immigrant communities, to the Spanish Flu, Ku Klux Klan and something about a spy, Abilene and her two friends get to know Manifest in a way many of the older residents seem to have forgotten. And how can they resist trying to find out who the spy was? The girls get themselves into some genuine mischief, looking for clues to the past and finding them everywhere.

I adore the warm woven texture of Vanderpool’s writing. Her storytelling style is perfect for children’s historical fiction.

And if someone pays you such a kindness as to make up a tale so you’ll enjoy a gingersnap, you go along with that story and enjoy every last bite.

Reading this got me thinking of my dad and older relatives, none of whom ever talk about their past. Ever. Letters were never saved. Photo albums disappeared in moves. And they don’t understand the curiosity. As if wanting to know more about the people who gave you life and attempted to shape that warm, needy lump of flesh into a good person is a bad thing. Parents. Today my sisters photograph and document every breath of their kids’ lives. When our present becomes the past there will be few mysteries.

My dad is a closed book until one of his grandchildren or some friend is in the room. Then out comes a story my sisters and I never heard before. Where do these stories come from? We call it the far side of the Dad. Similar to the far side of the moon, any glimpse is a rare gift.

I love the side I get to see, but can’t help wondering if there are really alien bases over there. At least with Moon we have satellites to photograph the mysterious dark side. How beautiful.

In my family, those without kids do the traveling a few days before Thanksgiving. It’s tradition! On Wednesday we converge and bounce around the kitchen each making and baking our own favorites to share. We used to follow a script, making every single dish from childhood whether they were loved or not, looking at you candied yams, because it’s tradition. Traditions are special and meaningful until they’re a chore. One year I drove 40 miles out of the way and then 40 miles back just to get date nut bread for the cream cheese sandwiches we loved as kids. There were loaves of fresh date nut bread at the bakery down the street, but if it’s not baked in a can nobody eats it.

At some point the holidays started feeling like a rerun, like we were always following other peoples traditions even though those people were us. That’s no fun. This year I’m trying my hand at corn bread stuffing and baking my favorite vegan pumpkin pie while my boyfriend makes his famous collard greens and my dad spreads cream cheese on canned bread because some traditions shouldn’t die. It does taste better from a can.

Usually I read foodish fiction in November because tradition. But The Smell Of Other People’s Houses was too evocative to resist. The sense of smell triggers powerful memories. The right smells are like a magical time machine. One whiff of real kielbasa or stuffed cabbage drops me at my grandpa’s kitchen table beside his DIY meat hole [meat hole: an aromatic hole knocked in the wall for hanging smoked meat].

Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock’s The Smell of Other People’s Houses is not the cozy tale the cover led me to believe. It’s another well written taste of life in Alaska. Unlike Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs, this one’s more bitter than sweet.

A handful of teenage characters tell their stories of growing up in 1970’s Alaska. The narrative shifts between their different points of view as their lives interweave despite very different backgrounds. Some of the girls live in Birch Park and survive on spam, church leftovers and layers of thrift clothing. Another feels her dreams of becoming a dancer slip away as she joins her father on his fishing boat for the summer per tradition. Among the most compelling characters is Ruth, sent away by a strict grandmother to have her baby in a convent.

It’s considered really bad manners to snoop and read other mariner’s charts. It’s the closest thing to a journal for men who trust no one but the sea.

Detailed slice-of-life-in-Alaska moments made this a pleasure to read despite some dark story lines. I know little about this state now let alone 40+ years ago when statehood was rather new and unwelcome by some. On paper this might sound like a bunch of after school specials mashed together. These kids navigate alcoholism, death, poverty and abuse on top of typical growing up challenges, as well as picking enough wild berries and fishing enough salmon to get through winter.

I liked these characters and how they grow through the pages. It’s a quick, substantial read that exposed me to other ways of life and I need that right now. Plus the writing is lovely. And the title so fitting. Right now I miss my grandparents and my home smells like cornbread and cinnamon.

In a few days we’re off to stay with family in PA where massive Donald signs are punctuated with arrow signs pointing to the nearest gun shop, often right around the corner. This weekend we steeled ourselves with comforting Georgian food in Brighton Beach. Then I made a few phone calls.

Some wonderful human made this “We’re his problem now” calling sheet complete with scripts and directories of senators and representatives. The scripts address health care, gun violence, police brutality and other issues constituents need to speak up about.

Take a look. Even if you’re not horrified by the election results, perhaps someone you care about depends on Obamacare. It’s flawed, yes, but without Obamacare someone I love would have died last June. Without Obamacare someone else I love would have a $500,000 hospital bill to wallpaper his mobile home with.

If nothing else, this can still be a country where people don’t die from treatable health problems or go bankrupt for daring to seek treatment. Perhaps you will consider taking a few minutes to complete Paul Ryan’s automated survey. Here’s some info from the call sheet.

Paul Ryan’s office is conducting a survey hoping to show a popular mandate to repeal the ACA (Obamacare). I just took it. It’s automated and quick. Here’s what to do:

1) Call (202) 225 – 3031
2) **WAIT through 40 seconds of pure dead silence suggesting you have called the Death Star. (Seriously. Don’t hang up. There’s no hold music. It’s a little odd.)
3) You will get prompted by the survey
4) Press 2 to participate
5) Press 1 to register your support for the ACA

The ACA is imperfect, but I have friends who depend on it. Paul Ryan expects a certain outcome to this survey. Let’s show him another.

There’s something called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC). States that pass this bill agree to allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. For some reason it doesn’t take effect until it’s enacted by enough states to collectively represent at least 270 electoral votes – its not a state-by-state thing. Once enough states enact the bill, my vote will count as much as someone in Florida or Pennsylvania. Had enough states managed to enact this bill already, the blathering orange face would still be just another bigot in a power suit. No oval office for him.

There’s a lot of confusing interpretations going around right now about the NPVIC. This morning my heart nearly burst when I read that if four states adopt this compact, the election goes to Clinton.

So far, 11 states possessing 165 electoral votes have enacted the National Popular Vote bill into law.

If state legislatures in, say, PA, AZ, MI and MO (57 electoral votes) convene before December 19th and manage to pass the NPV bill into law, that brings the bill up to 223 votes represented – not enough to enact the bill UNLESS a few more states work the same miracle. If this were a state-by-state thing, the 57 electoral votes in the above 4 states currently presumed to be Trumps would go to Clinton, winner of the popular vote.

Is it too late for 2016? I like to think that nothing’s over until it’s over, and electoral votes are not cast until December 19th. Technically, the state legislatures could convene and pass this bill before December 19th, right? Or is my sleep-deprived brain floating off into la la land. A few major media outlets have written about this bill, but I’m not finding anything putting it in context of December 19th. Does that mean it’s impossible? Am I chewing on false hope? I don’t know enough about enacting a bill to know.

I do know that people are protesting and hash tagging #notmypresident. I do know that while it’s natural to be disappointed or even angry by the results of an election, people should not feel afraid for themselves and the people they care about.

If you want to do something that might actually potentially make a difference, even if the odds are slimmer than the crack of light beneath the closet door I’m tempted to lock myself in for the next 4 years, this is that something. Maybe. I don’t know if it’s too late for 2016, but elections are too close to be decided fairly by anything other than the popular vote. If your state hasn’t enacted this bill yet, get in touch with your state representatives and push push push. Find your representative. Contact your elected officials.